Is Holiness Practical Today?

By Monk Moses the Athonite

All the saints of our Church "ended their lives after a good struggle and keeping the faith".

The saints are good-conquering strugglers and undaunted confessors. They were visited by the Holy Spirit and graced. They were not just good, kind, noble, smiling, and ethical, but they were icons of Christ. They are the ones that remain always indissolubly united with Christ, who reveal to the world and lead people to Christ. The saints assure us that the gospel is feasible and practicable throughout the centuries and we can if we want strive to unite with Christ. The saints by accepting Christ in their lives unreservedly are made Christ-like, and become Christ-bearers and Christ-seers. In this way they testify, confess, preach, and present everywhere and always Him. They cannot live without Christ. For them He is everything.

Quite often we are given various opportunities to confess Christ. Sometimes we do it promptly and pleasantly, sometimes with difficulty and sometimes out of fear or shame not at all. The true believer confesses Christ always fearlessly, because they keep living in repentance and humility. He feels weak, but trusts fully in Christ and is richly strengthened. He confesses Christ Who is in him. Sometimes it is hard to confess Christ even to those very near and dear to us. Then, according to the Gospel, they become "household enemies of this man". It happens that our own people do not understand us, but shouldn't we make an attempt to discreetly talk about Christ. Or sometimes we go to the opposite end. We talk to them so much about Christ, where in the end we fatigue them, sicken them, and repress them, so they do not even want to hear about Christ. We can never push or dominate or threaten anyone, and even more our own people, to follow Christ.

Christ is freedom and love. He invites, and requires no blackmail. We are called to inspire people to love Christ. When man is self-imprisoned by the mighty "ego", suffering from selfishness, individualism, egopathy and pride, it is difficult to love others, more so God. And thus he is unable to confess in front of people. Whoever does not confess, this means that they don't have love. Whoever does not love is self-sentenced to an icy loneliness, which will begin in this life and continue to eternity. The selfish egoist feels the love of God as fire, and cannot resist it, does not want it, is bothered by it, and it burns him.

Today there are Christians who love the saints, study the lives of the saints, running to their feasts, lighting oil lamps to them, venerating their icons, building temples in their honor, as well as shrines, icons, lamps, bread, prosfora, boiled wheat and so on. There also exist those who do not love the saints, and I am not speaking about atheists, the impious and the irreligious, but those influenced by rationalism, from an intellectual modern theology, which considers all these things as sicknesses of non-theological popular piety. Unfortunately much of the Christian world has not fully realized the great value and importance of saints in our lives.

The reverence, piety and fervor of the faithful lovers of saints have not disappeared in our days. One can see and rejoice over houses full of icons, with an unwaning vigil lamp, unquenchable candle and censer; simple grandmothers speaking with tears about the wonderful presence of the saints in their lives, hoping in the intercessions of the saints and the Theotokos to save them and help them to enter into Paradise. The lovers of saints are those who seek also today real saints to be upheld and benefited. They do not create and imagine saints, nor follow those who play a god or false saints, but bow to true and genuine holiness. The lovers of saints are the finest of the congregation in the parishes. They continue the tradition, honor reverently the memories of our saints, are not easily scandalized by false saints and are not affected and ridden by ecclesiastical scandals, real or not. When found in difficult conditions, such as being under a totalitarian regime, they endure bravely, hopeful and victorious.

The saints always remain humble, because they have the certain conviction that what is good has been given from above, and are not their own spoils. So the saints can't boast about their gifts, being given by the Father of Lights. Our saints, in full consciousness of their gifts, give all glory, honor and worship to God the Gift-giver. When they are praised by people they praise the Source of all good, the All-Good God. The more God sees man humble himself, the more He blesses him and graces him, since always "to the humble He gives grace". A charismatic who uses his gifts to his own glory and gain, surely will soon lose it, and be exhibited miserably in the eyes of people he exploited. From this life he will be confused, bewildered and wretched and he will expect eternal hell.

There exists, my beloved, plenty of hidden holiness in our troubled times. Not only in life nameless, unknown, obscure monks in the deserts and monasteries, but also in the world. Spouses who endure the resignation and capricious prodigality of spouses - drunkards, night owls, worthless and indifferent. Who are not led to divorce, but endure and hope and pray and leave a good example for their children. The attitude of the mother teaches the children, she is an excellent example, an incitement to virtue. This course they will not ever forget in their lives. This heroic attitude can convert a violent husband and definitely give you the crown of patience for the long, and sometimes a life of, suffering. We have known such rare heroines of faith, who for many years lived a horrible secret and torment in silence, patience, prayer, tears, humility, trust and hope in God. How can God not grace such beautiful souls?

You see, holiness has many aspects. Those in the world will not be judged because they do not do a lot of prayer, though there are some who do more than monks. St. John Chrysostom said: the laity will be saved by almsgiving. Almsgiving shows a humble soul who knows how to love. In this wicked and challenging era, whoever is humbled, chaste, pure, honorable, honest, fair, righteous and prudent will have much in heaven.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos

The Holy Prayer Rope

The Liturgical Cycles

The Life Cycle

Holy Baptism

Holy Chrismation

o      Holy Matrimony

o      Monastic Tonsure

§       Holy Orders

Burial

The Annual Cycle

Movable Feasts Are Based on Pascha:  Pre-Lent, Lent, Palm Sunday, Ascension, Pentecost

Fixed Feasts Are Based On Numerical Dates On The Calendar

The Great 12 Feasts of the Annual Cycle

7 Feasts of Our Lord

o      The Universal Exaltation of the Life Giving Cross- 9/14

o      The Nativity of Our Lord – 12/25

o      The Theophany (epiphany) – 1/6

o      The Entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem - Sunday Before Pascha

o      The ascension of Our Lord – 40 Days after Pascha

o      The Descent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost) – 50 Days after Pascha

o      The Transfiguration of Our Lord – 8/6

5 Feasts of the Theotokos

o      The Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos – 9/8

o      The Entrance of the Theotokos Into The Temple – 11/21

o      The Meeting of our Lord in the Temple – 2/2

o      The Annunciation to the Theotokos – 3/25

o      The Dormition of the Theotokos – 8/15

The Daily Cycle

Evening Services: 9^th Hour, Vespers, Compline

o      The 9^th Hour service actually belongs to previous day, and thus is actually part of the midday services.

o      The Liturgical Day Begins at the 12^th hour or 6 pm with Vespers and then continues with services at 3 hour intervals.

o      On Saturdays and on Great Feasts, the “All Night Vigil’ may be served. The vigil is a combination of Vespers and Matins, and last from 2-4 hours at parishes, and upto all night at monasteries.

      Morning Services; Nocturns, Matins, 1st Hour

o      1^st hour is usually joined to Matins.

Midday Services: 3^rd Hour, 6^th Hour, Divine Liturgy (Outside of Time) or Typical Psalms

o      6^th Hour is usually joined to 9^th Hour

Understanding the Bible Through the Church

It is the Church that tells us what is Scripture. A book is not part of Scripture because of any particular theory about its dating and author- ship. Even if it could be proved, for example, that the Fourth Gospel was not actually written by John the beloved disciple of Christ, this would not alter the fact that we Orthodox accept the Fourth Gospel as Holy Scripture. Why? Because the Gospel of John is accepted by the Church and in the Church.

It is the Church that tells us what is Scripture, and it is also the Church that tells us how Scripture is to be understood. Coming upon the Ethi- opian as he read the Old Testament in his chariot, Philip the Apostle asked him, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” And the Ethio- pian answered, “How can I, unless some man should guide me?” (Acts 8:30-3). We are all in the position of the Ethiopian.

The words of Scripture are not always self-explanatory. God speaks directly to the heart of each one of us as we read our Bible. Scripture reading is a personal dialogue between each one of us and Christ - but we also need guidance. And our guide is the Church. We make full use of our own personal understanding, assisted by the Spirit, we make full use of the findings of modern Biblical research, but always we submit private opinion - whether our own or that of the scholars - to the total experi- ence of the Church throughout the ages.

The Orthodox standpoint here is summed up in the question asked of a convert at the reception service used by the Russian Church: “Do you acknowledge that the Holy Scripture must be accepted and interpreted in accordance with the belief which has been handed down by the Holy Fathers, and which the Holy Orthodox Church, our Mother, has always held and still does hold?”

We read the Bible personally, but not as isolated individuals. We read as the members of a family, the family of the Orthodox Catholic Church. When reading Scripture, we say not “I” but “We.” We read in commu- nion with all the other members of the Body of Christ, in all parts of the world and in all generations of time. The decisive test and criterion for our understanding of what the Scripture means is the mind of the Church. The Bible is the book of the Church.

To discover this “mind of the Church,” where do we begin? Our first step is to see how Scripture is used in worship. How, in particular, are Biblical lessons chosen for reading at the different feasts? We should also consult the writings of the Church Fathers, and consider how they interpret the Bible. Our Orthodox manner of reading Scripture is in this way both liturgical and patristic. And this, as we all realize, is far from easy to do in practice, because we have at our disposal so few Orthodox commentaries on Scripture available in English, and most of the Western commentaries do not employ this liturgical and Patristic approach.

As an example of what it means to interpret Scripture in a liturgi- cal way, guided by the use made of it at Church feasts, let us look at the Old Testament lessons appointed for Vespers on the Feast of the Annunciation. They are three in number: Genesis 8:0-7; Jacob’s dream of a ladder set up from earth to heaven; Ezekiel 43:7-44:4; the prophet’s vision of the Jerusalem sanctuary, with the closed gate through which none but the Prince may pass; Proverbs 9:-: one of the great Sophianic passages in the Old Testament, beginning “Wisdom has built her house.”

These texts in the Old Testament, then, as their selection for the feast of the Virgin Mary indicates, are all to be understood as prophecies concerning the Incarnation from the Virgin. Mary is Jacob’s ladder, supplying the flesh that God incarnate takes upon entering our human world. Mary is the closed gate who alone among women bore a child while still remaining inviolate. Mary provides the house which Christ the Wisdom of God ( Cor. :4) takes as his dwelling. Exploring in this manner the choice of lessons for the various feasts, we discover layers of Biblical interpretation that are by no means obvious on a first reading.

Take as another example Vespers on Holy Saturday, the first part of the ancient Paschal Vigil. Here we have no less than fifteen Old Testament lessons. This sequence of lessons sets before us the whole scheme of sa- cred history, while at the same time underlining the deeper meaning of Christ’s Resurrection. First among the lessons is Genesis :-3, the ac- count of Creation: Christ’s Resurrection is a new Creation. The fourth lesson is the book of Jonah in its entirety, with the prophet’s three days in the belly of the whale foreshadowing Christ’s Resurrection after three days in the tomb (cf. Matthew :40). The sixth lesson recounts the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites (Exodus 3:0-5:9), which anticipates the new Passover of Pascha whereby Christ passes over from death to life (cf. Corinthians 5:7; 0:-4). The final lesson is the story of the three Holy Children in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3), once more a “type” or prophecy of Christ’s rising from the tomb.

Such is the effect of reading Scripture ecclesially, in the Church and with the Church. Studying the Old Testament in this liturgical way and using the Fathers to help us, everywhere we uncover signposts pointing forward to the mystery of Christ and of His Mother. Reading the Old Testament in the light of the New, and the New in the light of the, Old - as the Church’s calendar encourages us to do - we discover the unity of Holy Scripture. One of the best ways of identifying cor- respondences between the Old and New Testaments is to use a good Biblical concordance. This can often tell us more about the meaning of Scripture than any commentary.

In Bible study groups within our parishes, it is helpful to give one per- son the special task of noting whenever a particular passage in the Old or New Testament is used for a festival or a saint’s day. We can then discuss together the reasons why each specific passage has been so cho- sen. Others in the group can be assigned to do homework among the Fathers, using for example the Biblical homilies of Saint John Chryso- stom (which have been translated into English). Christians need to acquire a patristic mind.


By Met. Kallistos Ware
http://intervarsity1.uchicago.edu/text/ware.pdf

What Is Tradition?

It was usual in the Ancient Church to introduce doctrinal statements by phrases like this: "Following THE HOLY FATHERS". The Decree of Chalcedon opens precisely with these very words.


The Seventh Ecumenical Council introduces its decision concerning the Holy Icons in a more elaborate way: "Following the Divinely inspired teaching of the Holy Fathers and the Tradition of the Catholic Church." The didaskalia of the Fathers is the formal and normative term of reference.


Now, this was much more than just an "appeal to antiquity." Indeed, the Church always stresses the permanence of her faith through the ages, from the very beginning. This identity, since the Apostolic times, is the most conspicuous sign and token of right faith-always the same. Yet, "antiquity" by itself is not an adequate proof of the true faith.


The true tradition is only the tradition of truth, traditio veritatis. This tradition, according of St. Irenaeus, is grounded in, and secured by, that charisma veritatis certum [secure charisma of truth], which has been "deposited" in the Church from the very beginning and has been preserved by the uninterrupted succession of episcopal ministry. "Tradition" in the Church is not a continuity of human memory, or a permanence of rites and habits. It is a living tradition—depositum juvenescens, in the phrase of St. Irenaeus. Accordingly, it cannot be counted inter mortuas regulas [among dead rules]. Ultimately, tradition is a continuity of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, a continuity of Divine guidance and illumination.

"Following the Holy Fathers"… This is not a reference to some abstract tradition, in formulas and propositions. It is primarily an appeal to holy witnesses. Indeed, we appeal to the Apostles, and not just to an abstract "Apostolicity." In the similar manner do we refer to the Fathers.

The witness of the Fathers belongs, intrinsically and integrally, to the very structure of Orthodox belief. The Church is equally committed to the kerygma of the Apostles and to the dogma of the Fathers. We may quote at this point an admirable ancient hymn (probably, from the pen of St. Romanus the Melode). "Preserving the kerygma of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers, the Church has sealed the one faith and wearing the tunic of truth she shapes rightly the brocade of heavenly theology and praises the great mystery of piety."


St. Gregory Palamas

The Grace of Love

The soul cannot know peace unless she prays for her enemies. The soul that has learned of God's grace to pray, feels love and compassion for every created thing, and in particular for mankind, for whom the Lord suffered on the Cross, and His soul was heavy for every one of us.


The Lord taught me to love my enemies. Without the grace of God we cannot love our enemies. Only the Holy Spirit teaches love, and then even devils arouse our pity because they have fallen from good, and lost humility in God.


I beseech you, put this to the test. When a man affronts you or brings dishonor on your head, or takes what is yours, or persecutes the Church, pray to the Lord, saying: "O Lord, we are all Thy creatures. Have pity on Thy servants and turn their hearts to repentance," and you will be aware of grace in your soul. To begin with, constrain your heart to love enemies, and the Lord, seeing your good will, will help you in all things, and experience itself will show you the way. But the man who thinks with malice of his enemies has not God's love within him, and does not know God.


If you will pray for your enemies, peace will come to you; but when you can love your enemies - know that a great measure of the grace of God dwells in you, though I do not say perfect grace as yet, but sufficient for salvation. Whereas if you revile your enemies, it means there is an evil spirit living in you and bringing evil thoughts into your heart, for, in the words of the Lord, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts - or good thoughts.


The good man thinks to himself in this wise: Every one who has strayed from the truth brings destruction on himself and is therefore to be pitied. But of course the man who has not learned the love of the Holy Spirit will not pray for his enemies. The man who has learned love from the Holy Spirit sorrows all his life over those who are not saved, and sheds abundant tears for the people, and the grace of God gives him strength to love his enemies.

Understand me. It is so simple. People who do not know God, or who go against Him, are to be pitied; the heart sorrows for them and the eye weeps. Both paradise and torment are clearly visible to us: We know this through the Holy Spirit. And did not the Lord Himself say, "The kingdom of God is within you"? Thus eternal life has its beginning here in this life; and it is here that we sow the seeds of eternal torment. Where there is pride there cannot be grace, and if we lose grace we also lose both love of God and assurance in prayer. The soul is then tormented by evil thoughts and does not understand that she must humble herself and love her enemies, for there is no other way to please God.


St. Silouan

The Church is a Single Eucharistic Community

The (New Testament) phrase church in the household refers to the assembly of the faithful for the celebration of the Eucharist. If this assembly was called a church, this was because the assembly, epi to auto, for the celebration of the Eucharist was also called a church.

1 Cor 11: 16 But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God. 17 Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you. 20 Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper. 21 For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. 23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me." 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.

In contrast with the other terms used for the Church, the term church in the household was the most concrete expression of the Church, denoting the assembly of the faithful in a particular place in order to be united in the body of Christ. In consequence, the church in the household was not a third type of Church, different from the "local" or the "universal," but the local Church herself or Church of God, breaking bread at the house of one of her members.

So from an examination of the oldest texts of primitive Christianity, the Epistles of Paul, it transpires that the Eucharistic assembly was identified with the "Church of God" herself.


If we now examine those texts which are already seeing the end of the Apostolic period, such as the Revelation of John, we shall again have no difficulty in establishing the same identification of the Eucharistic assembly with the Church of God. Written characteristically "on the Lord's day," which is to say the day of the Eucharist par excellence, the Book of Revelation moves within the milieu and atmosphere of the Eucharistic assembly to such an extent that scholars studying it are faced with the problem of whether the Eucharist influenced this book or vice versa.  

Rev 1: 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, 11 saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and, "What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."

However that may be, it should be considered that there is at least a "mutual" influence between the Book of Revelation and Eucharistic worship.  This book transports us from the Eucharist to the throne of God and from the Church on earth to the Church in heaven in such a way that we think it is one and the same reality. Indeed, the mystical identification of the Church in heaven before the throne of God with the Church on earth worshipping before the Table of the Eucharist is such as to call to mind the connection between these two aspects of the Church which only in Orthodoxy has been preserved in such depth.  Chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation, to which we shall return later, make no sense without the presupposition that the Eucharistic assembly incarnates on earth the very Church of God.

From this is becomes clear that from the first appearance of the term ekklesia there was a most profound connection, even to the point of identity, between this term and the Eucharist celebrated in each city. Each such Eucharist constituted the expression in space and time of the Church of God herself.

Met. Zizioulas, "Eucharist, Bishop, Church"